- Over 1,000 secret electronic intercepts by America's
National Security Agency will be available to the new Royal Coroner to
the Queenís Household when he goes ahead with the long-awaited inquest
into the death of Princess Diana.
-
- The intercepts cover the last weeks of Diana's life and
include, NSA confirms, 'sensitive material.'
-
- Both the Queen and Prince Charles have agreed the inquest
should be held before the end of the year.
-
- They are said to believe it is time to bring to a close
the last outstanding unresolved link with the death of the princess.
-
- Removing it will be a stepping stone in the continuing
careful packaging of Camilla Parker-Bowles as the future partner of Charles.
-
- In the aftermath of Diana's death, the Queen made it
clear, through courtiers, that she was opposed to an inquest. She feared
it would cast an unfavourable spotlight on the way the Royal Family had
responded to Diana's death.
-
- But the unprecedented success of the Golden Jubilee celebrations
has convinced the Queen the time had come to hold an inquest.
-
- She has also been assured that the inquest jury will
be made up only of members of the Royal Household - senior courtiers.
-
- "There will certainly also be guidelines which the
Royal Coroner will not go beyond. Nothing will be asked that could cause
unnecessary pain to the Queen or Dianaís children," said a
legal source who was involved in the divorce settlement between Prince
Charles and Diana.
-
- Dr. John Burton, who has held the ancient title of the
Royal Coroner before retiring last month, said that "it is now inevitable
that the inquest will go ahead."
-
- Last week, Dr. Burton, 72, said ill-health had forced
him to retire.
-
- "My health is deteriorating. I could not see myself
lasting another two years in the job. When I heard there could be an inquest,
I told the authorities to take steps to replace me."
-
- His successor, Dr. Michael Burgess, who was Deputy Coroner
of the Royal Household, has already begun to draw up a witness list for
the inquest.
-
- His only public comment was a year after the fatal crash.
-
- "This is a high-profile case and everything has
to be weighed very carefully. The questions go behind the 'survivability'
argument over whether she (Diana) should have gone to hospital sooner.
The speed of the car, seatbelts, where people were sitting: these are all
relevant questions for an inquest to consider."
-
- It could hear evidence from NSA officers as well as testimony
from MI6, CIA and from Mossad. All the agencies were closely involved in
monitoring Diana and her lover, Dodi al-Fayed, in the weeks they spent
together before their fatal car crash five years ago this coming August.
-
- The NSA tapes - they number 1051 - are stored in a climate-controlled
vault at the agency's headquarters at Fort Meade outside Washington.
-
- They have been heard by only the agency's most senior
staff. But an officer at NSA headquarters said that a request "from
Buckingham Palace to make them available would almost certainly be met."
-
- NSA controls a worldwide electronic eavesdropping system
normally only used against Americaís enemies.
-
- But credible intelligence sources in London and Washington
insist that Diana came under surveillance because of her commitment to
outlaw land mines. Many were manufactured at the time of her death in the
United States, Britain and Israel.
-
- "The reality was that the land-mine manufacturing
industry provides thousands of jobs. Nobody wanted to see them out of work
because Diana had a bee in her bonnet," one intelligence source said.
-
- The NSA tapes are believed to contain evidence to support
Diana's constant concern about land-mines - and how she planned to mobilize
world leaders to support her in having them banned.
-
- Dodi's father, Mohammed al-Fayed, the millionaire owner
of Harrods, has waged an unsuccessful battle in the US courts to obtain
copies of the tapes.
-
- He believes they also contain evidence that his son and
Diana planned to marry - and that she may even have been pregnant before
her death.
-
- These claims may also be examined at the Royal Coronerís
inquest.
-
- But equally explosive could be the revelations about
the intelligence web that electronically enshrouded the Princess in the
last weeks of her life.
-
- Israel's Mossad has never denied it had recruited Henri
Paul, the driver of the car in which Diana, Dodi al-Fayed and Paul died.
-
- He was deputy head of security at the Ritz Hotel in Paris.
It is owned by Mohammed al-Fayed. It was there that former Tory government
minister, Jonathan Aitken has admitted he met with Arab arms dealers.
-
- "Given that, it is logical that we would want our
own man on the inside," Meir Amit, the former director-general of
Mossad has said.
-
- Former MI6 officer Richard Tomlinson has claimed the
service was "actively involved in tracking Diana."
-
- He has said that MI6 were helped by NSA satellite surveillance
to maintain watch on Diana and Dodi al-Fayed as they sailed around the
Mediterranean on his father's yacht, the Jonikal, in the weeks before Diana
died.
-
- The NSA tapes are also said to contain details of the
fate of the mysterious white Fiat Uno seen racing away from the scene of
the death crash.
-
- Traces of paint were found near the crash scene which
was of a type used on white Unos.
-
- There has been a persistent report that the white Uno
was destroyed in a Paris car crusher - reduced to a block of scrap metal.
-
- While the new Royal Coroner may wish to examine all this
data before he holds his inquest, it is still not clear how much he will
allow to be heard in public.
-
- The appointment is one that the Queen traditionally makes
herself. His task is usually to hold an inquest when someone dies in one
of the Royal palaces in unexpected circumstances.
-
- There was, for example, no inquest held into the death
of the Queen Mother or the Queen's own father. Their deaths were long awaited.
-
- But because of the unexpected and violent manner in which
Diana met her death, and the fact that she was brought back from Paris
to St. James's Palace, Dr. Burgess has the final decision to hold an inquest.
-
- His predecessor, Dr. Burton, unsuccessfully campaigned
to have a law introduced that would rule out such an inquest.
-
- While Dr. Burton still says it would be "a waste
of time to have an inquest," he has confirmed it will go ahead.
-
- The French investigators into Diana's death crash placed
the responsibility of Henri Paul, finding he was drunk and speeding at
the time of the crash.
-
- But the evidence of the secret NSA tapes could indicate
another reason for the way Henri Paul drove - that he was under pressure
from intelligence agents in Paris.
|
